‘Star Trek’ Flicks — Worst to Best: Part 2

by John Nolte

Let’s just get to where we left off in Part 1.

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5. Star Trek: Generations (1994) – Yes, “Where the hell’s Kirk?” was my mantra through most of the second act, but the Next Generation (TNG) crew got off to a promising start with William Shatner’s Captain Kirk bookending events to graciously hand off the baton. Plot holes riddle the story of Malcolm McDowall’s Soran and his maniacal attempt to return to the Nexus, an energy ribbon with a crack-like addictive ability to deliver its inhabitants into a dream-like nirvana (there had to be easier ways to get in the thing other than blowing up an entire friggin’ planet), but the concept of the Nexus – the idea of choosing between a false perfection and an imperfect reality is Trek at its best, and the scene where Picard enjoys a heart-wrenching Christmas with a family he’ll never have is a franchise high point. The best moments, though, arrive when Kirk and Picard, two Captains wildly different in personality but who share a love called Enterprise, come together to save the Universe. The complaints about Kirk’s death being anti-climatic are valid and the less than iconic setting for the demise of an icon is obviously due to budget and imagination constraints, but for me it works. When heroes fall it’s often in nondescript places we’ve never heard of where a stand has been taken to risk one’s life for those they’ve never met. Kirk may not have been real, but his final moments are.

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4. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) – In an episode of TNG series, the crew captures a Borg and creates a virus that once implanted in their captive will wipe out the entire Borg collective. But because TNG could be over-the-top stupid, Picard chooses not to commit “genocide.” The point of my digression? Simple… Mark this moment as the point when, without even knowing it, TNG became the perfect example of how selfish, do-gooder leftism is a recipe for never-ending war and countless miseries. Ever after, every murder and assimilation at the hands of the Borg is solely the fault of Captain Jean-Luc Picard — including those lost in this superb entry that ranks as one of the all-time best time travel movies. This is the only time TNG cast ever came close to gelling, but it’s the menacing Borg, especially the oddly sexy Borg Queen and a truly clever script that creates the kind of stakes and real peril no other TNG film would come close to. The “Moby Dick” allegory is a little on-the-nose, I was kinda digging Picard’s single-minded quest for revenge, but some very charming sequences involving the inventor of warp drive combined with outstanding villains and well-crafted action scenes earned enough audience goodwill to buy the franchise a couple more dismal outings.

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3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) – Note to my fellow Right-wingers: Don’t let the film’s Save the Whales message interfere with your embracing the warmth, humor and excitement of this thoroughly charming and exciting time travel adventure. You would think that after three television seasons and feature films the relationships and characters would have no place left to grow, and yet the writers and director Leonard Nimoy not only squeeze the fish-out-water concept for all its worth, but forever crystallize the Enterprise crew into a very real and believable family. One of the funniest and most delightful movies of the 80s and a blueprint for how make a cinematic political point without diminishing the fun. Oh, and Catherine Hicks is all kinds of hot.

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2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) - The deaths of James Doohan and DeForest Kelley sadly insured that this would be the final outing of the full Enterprise crew, but it’s hard to imagine a more fitting send off. Filled with political intrigue, a terrific, old-fashioned mystery and an adventurous subplot on a prison planet, those who thought a crew stocked with senior citizens wouldn’t be able to deliver the goods were in for a pleasant surprise. The first act is the best of the franchise, a perfect setting up of the dynamic between our crew and the prideful but desperate Klingons that all leads to a truly shocking and very well staged assassination sequence. That the remaining 85 minutes lives to the opening 25, never once dragging or releasing the tension for a moment, is a testament to just how good this film is. Another testament is that I walked into the theatre inconsolable with the knowledge that this was it, but left fully satisfied that seven individuals I’d known all my life would live on forever thanks to five timeless feature films that closed with a grand adventure worthy of an emotional investment as strong today as it ever was.

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1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) – After a feature debut so dismally disappointing I’ve still not quite recovered from it, like something out of a storybook, “Trek” rose again with a grand space adventure that ranks among the greatest sci-fi pictures ever made. The scene where James T. Kirk inputs the code to drop Khan’s shields is, by a wide margin, the single finest moment of the entire “Trek” canon. The fact that Kirk needs reading glasses to accomplish this combined with Ricardo Montalban’s reaction – a delightful mix of shock and admiration for an “old foe” – upon realizing he’s been tricked, is simply exquisite. “Khan” also represents its own kind of reboot. An entire new mythology was so well crafted here that it built an infrastructure that would see the franchise through four more adventures, thanks mainly to Spock’s death which became the rallying point to turn our intrepid crew into a close-knit family willing to take any risk to stay together. And for my money, this was always the heart of the series.

Addendum: Star Trek 11 (2009) — Now that I’ve seen the latest entry it can be properly ranked among the others.  Easy call. Thanks to a solidly entertaining first hour but a choppy, emotionally disconnected second, the latest incarnation ranks as 7th best, just below “The Search for Spock” but well ahead of “The Motion Picture.”


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Posted May 9th 2009 at 12:05 pm in Top 5 | 108 Comments